• Firmware Version: 300Y
• I2OBIOS Version: 1.2H
• SMOR Version: 1.11 Build 1E
• Storage Manager Version: 2.18
• DPTUTIL Version: 2.18
• SmartRAID V User's Manual, DO975005
• SmartRAID V Quick Install Guides, DO998001 & DO999001
• SmartRAID VI Installation Guide, DO1000001

Information in these release notes applies equally to DPT SmartRAID V and SmartRAID VI products as of the date shown above. Please review this file for important information about compatibility issues and differences in operation that were discovered after our product documentation was printed.

NOTE: Updated versions of the SmartRAID V documentation (in Adobe Acrobat PDF format) may be available for download from http://www.dpt.com.

In the case of conflict between various parts of the documentation set, this file (READ.ME) contains the most current information.

The Release Notes are divided into the following sections and topics:

1. General Information (includes updates for controller configuration) - DPTUTIL - Storage Manager - Storage Manager on ROM (SMOR)
2. Operating Systems - BSDi 4.0 and FreeBSD 2.2.8 - Linux 5.2 or 6.x - Novell NetWare 4.11/4.2/5.0 - SCO UNIX 3.2v4.2 - SCO UnixWare 2.x/7.x - Windows 95/98 - Windows NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 6 or higher) - Windows 2000 (Release Candidates 2 & 3)
3. Peripheral Devices
4. Motherboards and Computer Systems Notes of motherboard- or system-specific compatibility issues.
5. System Compatibility - Compatible host systems - Incompatible host systems

General Information:

* When a RAID 1 Build operation is in progress on an SX40x5 bus and the system reboots, the target drive is put in a Failed status. To complete the RAID 1 Build, select the array or LSU and start a Rebuild operation. If a Hot Spare exists, the Hot Spare will automatically replace the failed target drive.

* To ensure that your controller initializes correctly, DPT recommends that you install a minimum of 16MB of cache memory. Testing has shown that in a small number of systems, DPT controllers with 4MB of cache (such as the PM1554U2) do not initialize during the system boot process.

* Some motherboards are not able to initialize PCI to PCI Bridges and Multifunction Bridges if they are present in the same system. Therefore, these motherboards might not be able to configure both Millennium and Decade or Century controllers in the same system. See "Motherboards and Computer Systems" and "Hardware Compatibility" for additional information.

DPTUTIL:

* DPTUTIL, is now included with the DPT software distribution. This program is a command line storage management utility that allows you to create and manage your disk arrays from a command prompt on the following platforms:

DPTUTIL for Linux requires kernel versions 2.2.5, 2.2.5-15, 2.2.5-22, 2.2.10 or 2.2.12-20.

BSDi, FreeBSD, Linux and MS-DOS versions are available only as downloads from the DPT web site. Documentation for DPTUTIL is also available from the DPT web site in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. UNIX/Linux versions also include a man page for the command line parameters.

* SCO UNIX 3.2v4.2 and OpenServer 5

Running DPTUTIL with the -e soft parameter generates an error and no-fatal core dump.

Running DPTUTIL with the -A parameter returns data headings but does not display any data values.

Storage Manager:

* Storage Manager will incorrectly identify an SX4065U3 expansion module as an SX405xU2 expansion module. This problem will be fixed in a future release of Storage Manager.

* Storage Manager may not prompt you to reboot your system after you download a firmware image the controller. Always shutdown your operating system and restart your computer after you download flash image files through Storage Manager to ensure the new code is effective.

* The Array Group Information dialog and Logical Configuration window are not updated correctly after stopping a Verify operation. For the Array Group information window, click OK to close the window and then open it again. This new window will display the correct status. For the Logical Configuration window, select File--Read System Configuration to update the device status.

* DPT Storage Manager is now available for Linux 6.x systems. You can download Storage Manager for Linux from the DPT web site. See the "Linux" section under "Operating Systems" for additional information.

* DPT Storage Manager is not available for BSDi or FreeBSD systems. However, you can use the SMOR utility or dptutil program to configure disk drives and RAID subsystems for computers that use these operating systems. See the SmartRAID V User's Manual for additional information about using SMOR. Documentation for dptutil is available from the DPT web site in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

* The current version of the DPT Communications Engine (DPTSCOM.EXE) can support only one remote connection to a server. If you attempt to establish multiple remote connections to the same server, the DPT Communications Engine will fail with an Invalid Page Fault error. This will be fixed in a subsequent release.

* When using Storage Manager under SCO UNIX or UnixWare you might experience a problem using the Help-Glossary hyperlinks. If this occurs, place the pointer slightly below and to the right of the highlighted link. Clicking to select in this location should cause the link to be activated.

Storage Manager on ROM (SMOR):

* When creating a RAID-1 array, SMOR will allow mirroring to a disk that is smaller than the source data disk. This can result in loss of data. Ensure that both disks have equal capacity when creating a RAID-1 array.

* You cannot upgrade a controller's flash ROM from a floppy diskette on Compaq host systems. Copy the ROM image files to a SCSI disk drive and use the files on the SCSI disk when performing an upgrade.

* When using an ATI 3D RAGE video card, exiting SMOR may cause video display to become garbled. This is a problem with the video card and can be fixed by switching power to the computer off and then on.

* If you get a read error message while updating the DPT controller ROM BIOS using an image file stored on an IDE or SCSI disk drive, copy the image file to a floppy disk and try the operation again.

Operating Systems:

* Go to the DPT web site (http://www.dpt.com) or contact DPT Technical Support to obtain a beta version of the DPT SmartRAID V software and driver package for Windows 2000.

* If you are using I2ODDL.SYS with the ASPICD.SYS driver, only those CD-ROM drives attached to the first channel (channel 0) of the SmartRAID V controller are detected.

* DPT-qualified I2O Drivers for the following operating systems are provided on diskette in this release:

I2O Drivers for the following operating systems are available from the DPT web site (http://www.dpt.com):

* Although not released by the operating system vendors at the time of this document release, generic I2O drivers (Operating system Services Modules [OSM]) compatible with SmartRAID V may be obtained from:

Please contact your operating system vendor for availability of generic I2O OSMs for platforms that are not listed.

Linux

* Storage Manager for Linux 6.x requires kernel version 2.2.5 or later.

* Storage Manager for Red Hat Linux 6.1 will stop operating unexpectedly if you click on the close window button [X] in the Configure Host Bus Adapter dialog. Click on the OK button to exit this dialog and return to the Host Bus Adapter Info dialog. This problem will be fixed in a future release of Storage Manager for Linux.

* Storage Manager for Linux with the GNOME desktop environment does not automatically update the Percent Complete status of Build, Rebuild or Verify operations when the Storage Manager window does not have the focus. When the window receives the focus it will begin updating the completion status.

You can change the default behavior of the desktop to give new windows immediate focus by changing the setting in the Window Manager configuration options for the Enlightenment window manager.

* If you are using Red Hat Linux 6.0 issuing a halt command can cause the system to fail during the shutdown process. This problem occurs on various motherboards and DPT controller combinations.

DPT has determined that this problem does not occur if you disable Advanced Power Management (APM) services. If you encounter this problem, recompile the Linux kernel with the APM option disabled.

* To enable a SCSI tape device under Linux, do the following:

Load the DPT driver (dpt_i2o), if it is not already loaded or built into the kernel, using the following command:

insmod dpt_i2o

The system will return the tape drive information with the exception of the device file assignment You must keep track of this manually. If only one tape device is used, the path is "/dev/st0"; if two tape drives are used, the second one is "/dev/st1".

After the tape drive is recognized, you can use tar or cpio to copy files to the device.

Novell NetWare:

* If event broadcast to a Windows NT user/client is enabled under NetWare 5, the DPT NetWare Broadcaster will generate multiple event messages on the Windows NT client for a single event condition. DPT recommends using the Storage Manager Event Log viewer to view event messages for a NetWare server in place of broadcast messages. This problem will be fixed in a future release of the DPT Event Broadcast module for NetWare.

* I2O drivers for NetWare 4.11 are not supplied on the software diskettes. You can download the driver package from the DPT web site (http://www.dpt.com).

* Using a DPT SmartRAID or SmartCache IV controller and SmartRAID V controller in the same system will result in the following problems if the SmartRAID/SmartCache IV controller does not have a hard disk attached:

DPTUTIL -L will not list any devices attached to the SmartRAID/SmartCache IV controller. The command will scroll blank lines and then SmartRAID V devices will be listed. A Storage Manager session from a remote client will not display any devices attached to the controllers and the remote session will freeze after the hardware scan. You will have to terminate the storage manager remote session to recover from this condition.

* DPT has identified some limitations with NetWare support for I2O that requires a modified installation procedure. This modified procedure will allow the SmartRAID V controller to function as a boot device and correctly support certain software utilities and disk array configurations under NetWare. DPT is currently working with Novell to resolve these issues.

The DPT NetWare diskette includes a README.TXT file (from Novell) that has instructions for installing the Novell I2O drivers.

To use a SmartRAID V controller as a boot device under NetWare 4.11, you will need to use a special DOS batch file (DPT411.BAT) when installing the I2O drivers for NetWare. This batch file is available from the DPT Technical Support web site.

Go to http://www.dpt.com and access our technical support web site to download the batch file and view the latest information about installing the Novell NetWare I2O drivers for SmartRAID V controllers.

* The Novell SCSIOSM driver for I2O cards does not support tape or CDROM devices on SmartRAID V controllers. The standard Novell block storage OS Services Module (OSM) will work for hard disk drives. Contact DPT Technical Support for availability of an updated NetWare OSM.

SCO UnixWare 7:

* You cannot install the operating system onto an array if any non-RAID drives are present. The following workaround for this problem will allow you to install UnixWare 7.10 on an array and also have non-RAID drives after the installation.

1. Remove any non-RAID drives from the system. Leave the RAID drives installed.
2. Install the operating system on the disk array.
3. Reinstall the non-RAID drives.

During the next system boot UnixWare will assign the array a "ghost" address of 0.0.0 and disable whatever drive was previously assigned to 0.0.0. You will see a message about this change during the boot process.

* To ensure correct operation with tape devices, update your UnixWare installation to version 7.10. Versions prior to 7.10 may experience problems communicating with tape devices attached to SmartRAID V controllers.

* The statement in the SmartRAID V User's Manual that SCO does not support booting from a DPT controller is not correct. An I2O driver patch is available from SCO that allows you to to boot from a DPT controller.

To correct this problem, apply the I2O Mass Storage HBA Supplement (PTF7067E) for UnixWare 7. This patch is only for UnixWare 7.0.1 and 7.1.0. The patch is available from: http://www.sco.com/support/ftplists/uw7list.html

SCO UnixWare 2.1

* The DPT software diskette for UnixWare 2.1 was not available at release time. If you are using UnixWare 2.1, please contact DPT Technical Support for availability.

* DPT controllers are supported under UnixWare 2.1 after you obtain the I2O OSM driver patch from SCO. If you encounter difficulty installing the OSM driver, contact SCO for assistance.

Windows 95/98:

* If you add or remove an SX40xx module, battery module, or RA40xx, or you replace your existing, configured SmartRAID V controller with a different SmartRAID V model, when you restart your system Windows 95/98 will detect the controller as a new device. You will be prompted to choose a driver. Select the DPT miniport driver and click OK to complete the device installation. The DPT miniport driver that you select can be a new one you've downloaded from the DPT web site, the original one that came on diskette with your SmartRAID V controller, or the existing one already installed on your system in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS.

* If you attempt to correct a DPT controller entry under Other Devices in the Device Manager using the Update Driver function your system may hang during the restart sequence. If this occurs the device update is not completed and the device will still be identified incorrectly. You may need to manually copy the DPT miniport driver (DPTI20.MPD) to the Windows \SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS directory.

DPT has determined that this indicates a problem with Windows 95/98 and the motherboard chipset (Intel FX and BX types) when attempting to identify the DPT controller. Contact your motherboard manufacturer for a chipset driver patch.

NOTE: The controller will function normally even if there is no patch available.

* For Windows 98 only

Do not delete the DPT I20 Memory Controller entry under "System devices" in Windows 98 Device Manager. Deleting this entry will cause the Windows operating system to stop responding to user input.

* The I2ODDL.SYS driver may fail to load when there are no hard disk drives attached to a SmartRAID V controller or if the DPT I2O BIOS is disabled. This driver is required for CD-ROM support under MS-DOS.

* When a PM1564+RA4060, PM1554+RA4050, PM2554+RA4050, PM2654+RA4050 or PM3754U2 controller is installed, Windows 95 will display the controller information with conflicts in the Device Manager. However, the controller will operate normally. This problem also occurs in the Windows 98 Upgrade product, but not in the standard Windows 98 release.

* When using a PM3754U2, PM1564+RA4060, PM1554+RA4050, PM2554+RA4050 or PM2654+RA4050 controller you will see two entries under Other Devices in the Device Manager: PCI Card and PCI Memory Controller.

To install the DPT miniport driver:

1. Select Update Driver for the PCI Card entry.
2. Choose the DPT driver.
3. Reboot the computer.

Windows NT 4.0:

* Ensure you have installed the latest Service Pack from Microsoft for Windows NT before you install a SmartRAID V/VI controller and DPT drivers.

* Current miniport drivers for Fibre Channel do not support logical IDs greater than 31. You can include Fibre Channel drives with IDs greater than 31 in a SmartRAID V array if the logical array ID is less than 32. Support for Fibre Channel IDs 32-125 will be added in a future version of the DPT driver. Please contact DPT Technical Support for availability.

* Video corruption can occur when using a Millennium controller or a controller with an RA4050 module in a host system with a Cirrus Logic PCI video adapter. This problem occurs in any video mode other than 640x480-16 color.

Windows 2000 (Release Candidates 2 & 3):

* Refer to the WIN2KINS.TXT file on the DPT Windows diskette for instructions on installing SmartRAID V controllers under Windows 2000.

Go to the DPT web site (http://www.dpt.com) or contact DPT Technical Support to obtain a beta test version of the DPT software and driver package for Windows 2000.

* You cannot successfully complete installation of Windows 2000 using the floppy-based install procedure on AOpen AX5T motherboards. You must boot from the Windows 2000 CD-ROM (connected to the IDE controller or a non-SmartRAID V SCSI controller) to successfully complete the install process.

Peripheral Devices

* Seagate ST136475FC disk drives with microcode version 003 can cause erratic system operation when under I/O load. This can result in the operating system failing to respond to user input.

DPT has tested microcode version 0415 which resolves this problem. This microcode is not yet released by Seagate.

* nStor CR8F enclosures using Seagate ST39173FC disk drives may experience a condition that prevents some or all of the drives from being recognized by a DPT controller. If this condition occurs, use SMOR to change the SmartROM Configuration "Scan Delay" parameter from Default to 10. This will cause the controller to wait 10 seconds before scanning the bus for devices.

* Ricoh Model 6200S CD-R drives may not operate correctly with SmartRAID V controllers.

When you initiate a recording test using Adaptec EZ CD Creator (version 3.5), the test will fail and abort the recording session. You should be able to record data to a CD successfully if the Create function is used instead of the combined Test/Create operation.

* Quantum Atlas III and IV Ultra2 SCSI disk drives are not compatible with the DPT PM3755U2B controller. If you attach these drives to this controller, a condition will occur that prevents the drive from being identified by the controller firmware, and consequently by SMOR and Storage Manager. This problem is specific to the PM3755U2B controller.

Motherboards and Computer Systems:

* A Soyo SY-6BE motherboard with a SmartRAID VI controller that has 4MB of cache can experience erratic operation and possible data loss. This problem does not occur if the controller has 16MB or more of cache memory.

* An FIC SD11 motherboard, AMD Athlon 600 MHz, AMI BIOS NC604 with a SmartRAID V controller will stop responding if you attempt to enter SMOR during the system boot. You can use Storage Manager or DPTUTIL in place of SMOR to configure disk drives or arrays attached to this system.

* Iwill BD100 motherboards using Award BIOS 4.51PG (Iwill release 31310A) are not compatible with DPT controllers that have more than 64MB of cache memory.

* A computer system or motherboard need not be I2O compliant to support SmartRAID V. However, a non-I2O compliant machine may display "Unknown PCI Device in Slot x" during it's system power-on self test (POST). Even if your system displays "Unknown PCI Device in Slot x" or something similar, your system or motherboard may still be compatible with SmartRAID V.

* Intel

- An Intel OCPRF100 system will not boot using the onboard Symbios SCSI controller when a DPT SmartRAID V is installed in PCI slot 6. If you want to boot from a disk drive using the onboard Symbios controller:Install the SmartRAID V controller in any other available slot. Set the SMOR SmartROM Configuration parameter Bootable Devices to Disabled.

- Systems using Intel SC450NX, MB440LX, N440BX, NL440BX and AK450NX motherboards will not boot successfully if:

There are two or more SmartRAID V controllers and the total cache across all controllers is greater than 320MB.

One controller with more than 128MB of cache is installed.

This cache limitation is caused by the Intel system BIOS; ensure that you are using the most recent BIOS version.

* Abit BH6 and BX6 Motherboards

- This motherboard is not compatible with the PM3755U2B controller when a BB4050 module is attached. All other SmartRAID V controller configurations are compatible with this system.

- PM3754U2 and PM3755F controllers will not initialize when the system is started by cycling the power off and on. Press the manual reset button on the system to correct this condition. This problem occurs only during a power-on sequence; resets or warm-boots do not cause the controllers to fail initialization.

* Compaq

- Deskpro EP/SB series systems with Windows NT will not reboot if you are using a SmartRAID V Decade or Century controller without an RA4050. The system will boot normally the first time after installing the controller, however, subsequent restarts will fail during the Windows NT load process.

- Proliant systems do not complete initialization of SmartRAID V controllers that have less than 16MB or more than 128MB of cache installed on one controller or a total of 128MB of cache installed across multiple controllers. This problem may be corrected by a newer BIOS version, contact Compaq for information about obtaining a BIOS upgrade.

* Acer and AOpen

- AOpen AX59Pro motherboards using the Via MVP3 chipset will not complete power-on self test (POST) when using a PM1554 or PM2554 controller with the RA4050 module.

- Acer 930, 9100 & 21000 systems will report an IRQ Setting Error during the power-on self test (POST) when an RA4050 module or Millennium controller is present. The controller will operate normally and this error message can be ignored. To bypass this error during POST enable the system CMOS setting "No Halt on Error".

- AOpen AX5T motherboards do not complete the power-on self test when a DPT Millennium controller with more than 128MB of cache is installed. If the cache is less than 128MB, this problem does not occur.

See the "Windows 2000 (Release Candidate 2)" section for additional information about installing Microsoft Windows 2000 on a host with this motherboard.

* On some Asus motherboards if a SmartRAID V controller is found first, any subsequent SmartRAID IV controllers are ignored by SMOR when a RAID accelerator is attached. This problem does not occur when a SmartRAID IV controller is the first one found or when using a PM3754U2 controller.

* SmartRAID V adapters are PCI Bridge devices, and if properly recognized by the motherboard or system BIOS, will be identified as a "PCI Bridge Adapter" or something similar during your system power on self-test (POST).

Hardware Compatibility

The following systems have been tested by DPT and found to be compatible with SmartRAID V controllers: